Space Interrupted:Gosport

Fort Brockhurst
Gosport
2015

Improvised Field of Fortification consists of overlapping ideas and narratives about conflict and defence; from the barricades of the French Revolution to scenes from Apocalypse Now; from the dystopian and post apocalyptic worlds created by Angela Carter and Margaret Attwood and the short-lived uprisings across Europ, in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Budapest etc around 1848-49, to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East where oppressive regimes are met with brief moments of unified resistance. Improvised Field of Fortification presents an instance of futile and precarious resistance to the crushing power of the war machine. Fragile and feeble, it offers a view into an uncertain future.

By tapping into Foucault's third principle in Of Other Spaces:Utopias and Heterotopias there seems to be a way of "...juxtaposing in a single real place several spaces, several sites that are in themselves incompatible." So the fort becomes a stage where a series of conflicts come together to form a narrative and spatial collision.

Space Interrupted: Gosport is a collaboration between curator Clare Sheppeard and six artists from the Southern region. Sharon Haward, Patti Gaal-Holmes, Helene Kazan, Lisa Traxler, Eileen White, + Kye Wilson have been inspired by one of the 22 Victorian Forts around Gosport + Portsmouth, built in the 1860'2 to defend the south coast and Royal Navy from Naploleon.